“Game of Thrones” is known for unexpected twists in its sprawling narrative. But if there’s one thing it seems safe to assume, it’s that Tyrion Lannister is unlikely to receive a fair trial.

HBO’s top-rated fantasy series surprised TV audiences earlier this season by killing off sadistic King Joffrey (Jack Gleeson), who was poisoned at his own wedding feast. Despite protesting his innocence, his uncle Tyrion, played by Emmy Award winner Peter Dinklage, was accused of the crime and banished to a cell to await a trial, overseen in part by his own father Tywin (Charles Dance) — who has long held his dwarf son in open contempt.

During an interview to promote his upcoming turn as the villainous Boliver Trask in “X-Men: Days of Future Past,” which arrives in theaters May 23, Dinklage confirmed that justice might be difficult for Tyrion to come by.

“I don’t think anything’s fair in King’s Landing, is it?” he said, speaking by phone from New York. “He’s the fall guy in this situation, isn’t he? They just wanted to make it all easy and make me go away, but I think Tyrion is quite a survivor. Hopefully he will find a way. I hope so, because I like my job. … It’s great fun. Since I’ve joined ‘Game of Thrones,’ it’s been such a pleasure.”

“Game of Thrones” arrived in 2011 as an expensive gamble: Would viewers respond to a densely plotted political fantasy involving betrayal, incest and fire-breathing dragons? Turns out the answer was a resounding yes. Over the course of three seasons, the series, adapted from George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” novels, evolved from a well-pedigreed curiosity to one of television’s most discussed (and most expensive) marquee programs.

As a cultural touch point, the series’ zenith might have arrived last June with the episode titled “The Rains of Castamere,” an installment that saw three characters meet especially gruesome ends at the so-called Red Wedding. Moments after the episode concluded, the Internet exploded with outrage — a Twitter account called @RedWeddingTears amassed more than 9,000 followers in less than 24 hours, and fans posted reaction videos on YouTube to chronicle their shock and despair over such a cruel twist in the narrative.

More recently, though, controversy erupted over a scene in which Cersei Lannister’s relationship with her brother Jaime took a bleak, horrifying turn as he raped her beside the body of their son Joffrey. Reactions to the scene between Lena Headey and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau have continued to play out online in a number of ways, though show runners David Benioff and Dan Weiss have not publicly commented on the scene.

Speaking to the series’ ongoing popularity, Dinklage gave much of the credit to Benioff and Weiss and the show’s creative team for crafting such a visceral world with ever evolving political and interpersonal machinations — and twists that continually surprise the audience.

“It’s great storytelling,” Dinklage said. “It goes back to the writers, and television has gone through a transformation that’s really attracting great writers because the writers have creative control with a lot of these TV shows now. We have two of the best writers working today, David Benioff and Dan Weiss, and they make my job so much more fun. It goes back to the scripts.”

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